Orange glory

Happy birthday to my sweetheart R! We've had a great day so far—I went on a field trip with my new Japanese friend and her baby. Then R and I sat outside in the garden, having a nice leisurely BBQ, followed by birthday fruit tart. Fresh nectarines, strawberries, and kiwis—all atop a layer of French pastry cream speckled with vanilla beans and an almond flour/cornmeal pastry crust.

I got the kind of candles that relight after you've blown them to test his lung capacity—which is still pretty good for my R. Now listening to more of his CD collection—Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday song, Milli Vanilli, Pet Shop Boys, Summer of 1969, and now Der Kommisar in German. Tonight R and I will be celebrating his birthday dinner at the bistro in our village, a place we've been looking forward to trying.


Last night R and I got into the World Cup spirit by dressing in orange. R made his entrance raising the Dutch flag in support of the Netherlands who were playing Cameroon. The hosts had festooned their house in the color of the Dutch royal house—orange balloons, orange caps, funny orange hats (which I'm wearing in the picture below), huge orange sunglasses, orange flower leis, etc. One of the guests even had a giant block of cheese on his head which faintly reminded me of the cheesehead hats that the Packers fans don. Upon asking my guess was confirmed—the guy got it from Wisconsin.

After the hosts realized Swiss networks weren't showing the game, R saved the day by hooking a laptop up to a site that had live streaming of the game. The game was good but I watched from the kitchen, near the table set with aromatic juicy barbecue chicken, satay sticks, tabbouleh salad. The beer, of course, was Heineken.

On another note, my Japanese friend was pretty excited that Japan beat Denmark, 3-1. And she reminded me Le Tour is coming! It's passing by our town on July 11th. I'm getting my yellow jersey out so watch out for me on le tv.